The Felix Chronicles: Freshmen (6 page)

Angela knew she had to get a grip on herself, yet the fear was coiling around her like a living thing, leeching away her resolve and her ability to think. But she had to do something. So she swallowed down the dread and the terror, then drew in a deep breath and focused on one thing: getting out of here.
There had to be a way out.
The heroines in the books she liked to read always found a way out. They always survived. And she was clever and strong, just like the girls in those books. She just needed to think. This wasn’t how her life was going to end. If her life was a story, then she was the heroine, and of one thing she was absolutely sure:
heroines
don’t die on page twenty
. And her story was still in the early chapters.

But the grotesque man towering over her was a giant. And he looked strong—strong enough to bench press a car. Even if he didn’t have the knife, she didn’t have any chance of overpowering him. She was one of the best athletes at her school—a starter on the basketball team and an all-league soccer player for the past two years. But the Faceman was
huge
. Big enough to squash her like a bug.
People can’t be this big,
she thought. It was almost like he was unreal: The monster in a fairy tale that lives under a bridge terrorizing travelers until the heroine comes along to dispatch the horrible beast with a swift stroke of her shining sword. But no one was coming to her rescue; she would have to do it herself. She glanced all around, thinking. The shed was empty except for some cigarette butts and an orange candy wrapper sticking out of the dirt in the corner. There were no windows. The lone exit was a narrow cut-out on the far side—directly behind the Faceman. Rectangular lengths of light probed through wedges in the oxidized metal sheets, but they were far too narrow to squeeze through.

The Faceman was watching her, his eyes colorless and measuring. “As much as I’m enjoying our little chat, it’s time to begin the test.” He motioned with his hand. “Stand up. Up, up, up. C’mon now.”

She wasn’t sure if her legs were going to cooperate, but it didn’t look like she had a choice. She braced her back against the wall, and using it for support, slowly pushed herself up. Her legs were shaking, and her feet felt cold, prickly and a little numb, but she kept her balance. She looked straight ahead and sucked in a panicked breath. Her head only reached up to the bottom of the Harley Davidson logo on the Faceman’s shirt. He had to be at least eight feet tall. She felt like a toddler.

“You’re an only child?” he asked.

She couldn’t answer. Her vocal cords seemed paralyzed as she gaped at the hulking behemoth. His chest was three times as wide as a normal man’s.
Where on earth does he get his clothes?
You can’t buy—

The knife flashed out at her face, slicing through a flutter of sun caught dust. She jumped back and crashed into the aluminum panel. Better reflexes this time. Her legs felt less stiff, less like wooden boards. Not springy, but better than before. That was the good news. The bad news was the knife was so close to her face she could see the individual serrations etched into its polished surface.

“Angela, my dear, I will gut you like a rainbow trout if I have to. And”—a thin smile touched his face—“I’ll enjoy it. But first things first. Answer the question.”

She stared at the knife. It was long enough to cut her in half. “Yes,” she said faintly.

He nodded. “I knew the answer already. I’ve done my diligence on you. But I do enjoy a little dialogue now and again and I was hoping you would answer so I could tell you that being an only child can be advantageous. It might help you.”

Angela’s brow wrinkled in confusion. She didn’t understand how that could help her. The Faceman killed teenagers. And she knew the teenagers he killed were almost always only children. So why would it be a good thing to have no siblings?

“But please stop crying. Crying won’t help. It never does. Okay?”

She brushed her hair back from her forehead. Then she wiped her eyes, but it didn’t do much good; they were swimming with tears.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

She shook her head.

“Would you like to guess?”

“I don’t know!” she cried out. “Please let me go! Please! I’ll give you anything, anything you want. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

“I would love to let you go,” he said and he sounded sincere. “Honestly, I would. But whether you get to leave or not, is entirely up to you. It’s not my decision. You just have to do one thing.”

“What?”
she choked out, the slightest glimmer of hope stirring inside her chest.

“You have to pass the test. Just like the boy who tore off my nose. If you pass, your life will be more amazing than you could possibly imagine. You, Angela, could be a Drestianite. And if you are, you’ll stand by his side as the revolution spreads across the world. A higher purpose could be awaiting you, my dear.”

“Just let me go!” she pleaded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Angela, Angela, Angela. I’ll explain everything. I will. Trust me. Just as soon as you show me you’re
special
. That’s what this is all about. That’s the question. Are you special?”

Special?

The Faceman was talking crazy now. She wondered how much longer it would be until he took out his gun (the gun she knew he had). She bent her knees for a second to test her legs. They still felt a little rubbery, but they were getting stronger. Being on her feet was helping with the circulation. She wasn’t up for running a 10K, but she felt nimble enough to make a dash for it if she got the chance.

The Faceman was still talking about something, but she didn’t catch it. He gave her a puzzled look, then used the knife to point at a half-submerged piece of kindling on the floor. It was between them (slightly closer to the Faceman) and a bit off to her left. It looked like it had once been a chair leg. Now it was splintered and decayed with amoeba-shaped patches of varnish still visible through the rot and dark grayish mold. “See that?” he asked.

She did.

“What? That?” She pointed at it, just to gauge the strength in her arm. It felt good, almost back to normal. Whatever he’d done to her—drugged her or chloroformed her or whatever—had worn off. Now she needed a plan. What would the heroines in her books do?
What would Katniss do?
she asked herself. Katniss would find a way out. She wouldn’t let the story end here. Katniss wouldn’t let herself die at the hands of some awful boy from another district. And neither would Angela. She tried to put herself in Katniss’s place—
to channel her inner Katniss
—and an idea formed in her head. Angela’s advantage on the Faceman was her quickness and agility. If she could distract him for just a second, she should be able to use those skills to get around him (or even dart between his legs) and escape out through the doorway to his back.

“Yes,” the Faceman answered. “Make it move, and you pass the test—you get to live. Fail and… well, I think you get the idea.”

“That’s it?” Like a plank walker, she took a cautious, fumbling step forward.

“Stop!” he shouted.

She froze, cowering, waiting for the blade to plunge deep into her stomach. She ducked her head. Her hands went to her elbows and cupped them. The seconds ticked by. Sweat rolled down her back. Nothing. No blade. She was still on her feet. Still alive.

“Not like that, Angela. No. No. No.” He waggled his forefinger back and forth like he was admonishing a child. “Make it move with your
mind
.” He placed both index fingers on his temples, and Angela thought he looked like a one-horned devil with the long blade poking up above his head. “Without touching it,” he added.

This was her chance.

“With my mind?” She nodded at the wood scrap, hoping he would glance at it just long enough to get his attention off of her.

His eyes flickered over to it.

She rushed at the doorway in a sudden, explosive burst. She made it three steps and the Faceman’s eyes were still on the wood. Her hand skimmed across the floor as she dipped her shoulder low and propelled herself forward, shooting for the space just beside his right knee. Another step. Her path now clear, the doorway flooded her vision with golden light, the world beyond the shed’s gloom drawing near. Another step. The light grew larger, beckoning to her, the promise of freedom just a few yards away.

The light blinked out and she rammed into something hard, something as dense and immovable as a wall. She stutter-stepped backward, stunned. The wall was wearing a dark T-shirt with a red Harley Davidson insignia and faded camo pants tucked into black combat boots. With a deft lateral movement, the Faceman had planted himself between her and the exit. The little sidestep was quick and perfectly timed, as if they were dance partners moving in choreographed harmony. She shook the stars from her eyes and craned her neck to look up at his face.

The Faceman’s eyes locked on hers and his lips peeled back from his wolf teeth in an indulgent, knowing smile. His horn had changed. It was still long and silver, but now it looked dull and flat at the tip. No, not a horn she realized, but a gun that he held next to his face, the barrel pointed at the ceiling.

“Angela, do I strike you as an amateur?” He tilted his head at the weapon. “This is a forty-four magnum. Do you have any idea what one bullet from this will do to your face?” She knew. A kid at school had shown her a picture on the Internet of one of the Faceman’s victims. She’d slapped the kid. Then she threw up on his shoes.

She screamed as she tried to distance herself from him but in just a few steps, she was right back where she’d started, right up against the wall.

“In Louisiana, no one can hear you scream.” He grinned his livid grin for a moment as though he was enjoying some private joke, then it dimmed. “That’s not going to help. Didn’t we go over this?”

As if on cue, a train’s whistle sounded in the distance and the ground began to jitter beneath her feet.

“The test, Angela.
The test!
Let’s resume, shall we? Show me what you’ve got.”

She stared at him, beaten, confused and scared. She didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t move things with her mind.
There was no way out. She was trapped.

“Angela!” he bellowed, turning her name into a threat.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” She looked at the chair leg. “I don’t und—”

“It’s simple. Move it with your mind. I don’t require much. Just an inch—even a centimeter—will do. Just show me that you’re a Sourceror. Then you can leave. We’ll leave together. I’ll buy you lunch. You like quesadillas? I’m in the mood for Mexican. Now do it.”

Angela just stood there looking from the Faceman to the piece of wood and back again, trying to make sense out of the lunacy spewing from his twisted mouth.

He brought the barrel down slowly, leveling it at her forehead. “Do it!”

There was a heavy silence for a moment, then she screamed up at his face: “I can’t move it with my mind! You know I can’t! It’s impossible.” For the first time since Angela had discovered herself in the shed, her voice projected tenacity and strength. She sounded confident—believable. It was the voice she used when she’d had enough, when even her dad knew not to push her. But when she saw the Faceman’s expression her heart plummeted. She’d made a mistake and she realized it immediately. She was trying to convince him of something that if true, meant death. His frightening face had turned even darker. The intact part of his upper lip curled back over his teeth. Then he frowned deeply, and an indescribable, glacial coldness passed over his eyes.

Angela had lived her life believing that bad things only happen to other people. She knew she would die—eventually—but not until she was 100, with kids and grandkids and great grandkids surrounding her in her warm loving bed. If she was on a plane that crashed—she would survive. If her ship sank at sea—she would survive. She would survive anything. But now, a sense of foreboding rose up from her stomach and lodged itself in her throat, and a thought, strange and surreal, gripped her mind:
I’m going to die.
She wasn’t Katniss. She was just a girl. A girl who lived in the suburbs. A girl who went to school and liked music and books and movies and going to the mall with her friends. She was just an ordinary girl. A girl.

“—do you want my ugly mug to be the last thing you ever see?” he was asking her. “Your choice. Focus. You can do it.” He lifted an eyebrow and said icily, “Or… can you?”

“I can’t. Oh God. Oh God.” She stared at his awful face, trembling with fear.

“Make it move, Angela!”

“How? I don’t know… how… how can I—?”

“I’m going to count down from ten. If you haven’t accomplished this task by the time I reach zero, I’m putting a bullet in your head. And I won’t stop with just one. Think of your parents, Angela. Do you want mommy and daddy to see their beloved little girl with her brains spread across the county? No? Then I would encourage you to try a little harder.”

“Oh God. No. I can’t. I don’t want to die. I—”

“Ten, nine, eight…”

“No! No!” she wailed, holding her hands out to him plaintively. “Don’t. Please. Don’t do this to me. Please.”

“Seven, six, five, four…”

“Move,” she said weakly, her eyes skirting to the piece of wood. She was bawling. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. “Please move. Please. Move. Move. Move…”

It didn’t budge.

“Three, two, one…”

Angela looked up at him, begging him with her hopeful teenage eyes. His eyes were cold and lifeless—the black soulless pits of a Great White Shark. It was the last thing she ever saw.

“
Zero
.”

*   *   *

He squeezed the trigger. The gun went off with a deafening roar, shaking the foundation of the broken shell of a building. Angela’s head jerked back and she collapsed to the dirt floor in a crumpled heap. Blood, bone and hair leaped high into the air and spattered the wall behind her in dripping clots.